Mark Driscoll Kicks His Own Ass

07/01/2008

By Jesse Benjamin

Mark Driscoll, Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, took a dramatic stand against girly men at a Pastor’s Conference in Houston last week.

The conference, called “re:tool and re:load,” previously billed as “jesus 2.0,” featured speakers from around the country with the stated focus of “Making the Gospel and Missiology Relevant to Post Modern Culture.” Speaking at the last session of the conference, Driscoll focused his three-and-a-half-hour talk on the need for pastors to be more alpha.

“The problem with our churches today is that the lead pastor is some sissy boy who wears cardigan sweaters, has The Carpenters dialed in on his iPod, gets his hair cut at a salon instead of a barber shop, hasn’t been to an Ultimate Fighting match, works out on an elliptical machine instead of going to isolated regions of Russia like in Rocky IV in order to harvest lumber with his teeth, and generally swishes around like Jack from Three’s Company whenever Mr. Roper was around.”

Pacing the stage in a vaguely threatening manner, Driscoll focused on Biblical examples. “Jesus and Paul were serious dudes. They had teeth missing. Jesus was a carpenter, Paul was in prison. These guys didn’t eat tofu dogs and bean sprouts. They didn’t play tennis. If there were trucks back in their times, they would have been doing driveway lube jobs on a Saturday afternoon. Same thing with King David. Yeah, he might have played a lyre, but he slaughtered thousands of guys.”

The 300 pastors from around the country roared with approval, even though many of them had heard the same labored formulations at previous conferences called “reGeneration” and “resurge and reform.”

“At the Re:Ignite conference he talked about how Jesus and Peter didn’t wear matching sweatshirts that said ‘Best Buds’,” said John Kinston, a conference attendee who was live-blogging the event.

Kinston is emblematic of the many young pastors who support Driscoll. He planted Kiona Community Church three years ago in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. He attends 37 Mark Driscoll conferences each year, because he said he needs the support of fellow church planters and the inspiration of steroidal statistics.

“Numbers aren’t important, but we’ve grown 81.7% a year since our launch date and I still can’t get the guys to step up and be warriors," said Kinston. "We want to love our city and we can’t do that with a bunch of pansies who would rather play video games than go to a monster truck rally or tattoo their faces like Mike Tyson.

“At last year’s Converging Conference, Driscoll talked about standing up when you piss and I got really excited. We started a men’s-only Bible Accountability Group. It was a combination of scripture study and Muy Thai Stick Fighting. It was great for a few weeks, until my worship pastor lost an eye. I had to make a tough call then and there: no more Muy Thai Stick Fighting at Kiona Community without protective face gear. I still think it might have been a spiritual compromise.”

In Houston, Driscoll was intent on making absolutely clear that he is in favor of masculinity. At the 2 hour, 15 minute mark, he invited five pastors from the audience to take the stage, put his hands behind his back, stuck out his chin, and said, “Hit me with your best shot. Go on. I won’t hit you back. I want to show everyone what this is all about.” When none of the five took a swing, Driscoll had them escorted from the building and proceeded to hit himself five times.

“This is what being a pastor is about, guys. If you can’t handle it, go back to teaching yoga or playing My Little Pony with the other girls.”

The rest of the session followed the same general tone, with Driscoll ridiculing insulated coffee cups, haiku and dental floss as feminine while extolling athletic cups, tobacco spit and broken load-bearing bones as being “essential for a pastor.”

The blogosphere heated up quickly in the wake of Driscoll’s talk. At Jesuswasaman.blogspot.com, one post read, “This is the only thing that will turn back the tide of the Church’s decline in America. Until more guys step up and start punching themselves in the face, people will continue to leave the Church.”

Driscoll’s detractors had their say as well. At thereisaplacefordriscollinhellbesidehitler.wordpress.com, Angel23 said, “It doesn’t matter that Driscoll’s church has 6,000 people coming to worship God, if he continues to use words like sissy he will be smited.”

Driscoll turned down our request for an interview, saying, “Interviews are for wimpy guys who wear Sans-a-Belt slacks and chew sugar-free gum.”

Comments(448)

budda | 12:29 am on 7/02/2008

Is Driscoll the Bizarro Rob Bell? Both pastor churches called Mars Hill, and both are (supposedly in driscolls case) emergent pastors, but they are total opposites. Bell is like a gen-x Mr. Rogers and Driscoll wishes he were Hulk Hogan. Christendom is ever so entertaining. The Door should do "Christian Celebrity Death Match".

In his "denying of the virgin birth" he was making a rhetorical point, it would be like taking a sound bite from a pastor talking about sinful things and and claiming that he was teaching people to be sinful. Quotes devoid of their intended context can be taken in many directions they were not intended.

I've listened to both Bell and Driscoll, and I've never heard either of them say something that caught my eye as heretical. They have different styles yes, and some different interpretations of things, but they are both doing their best to spread the word of God.

Looking for heresy from Rob Bell? Don't need to look far.
Try reading Velvet Elvis.
If we found Jesus was not born of a virgin, would that make any difference? Bell says "no". Apparently his theology has some major gaps (heresies?). Yes, it would make all the difference if Jesus were just another man. The virgin birth has been considered essential since, say, Matthew chapter 1.

It is sad when faith is the truth. Faith MUST have an object! If the object is not reliable or true then it is worthless and dead. People have faith all the time, but is it grounded in the object that is true? Muslims have faith that if they kill themselves in a holy sense they will be with virgins, is there faith what matters not the object (who)they are trusting in?

Faith in Christ is worthless if He was not born from a virgin. He would not be able to lay down His life (because He would be spiritually dead like all of us) only one can represent man and it had to be one born of the seed of the women. The historical Christ and who He is and how He came is key to us putting our faith in Him for to give us His life. If He is not the promised one and He did not die and was buried and rose again then He is nothing and His teaching are but fluff, and empty philosophy.

I have heard and read some of Rob Bell's works and I would suggest that you better know what God say's in His word. A expert in dealing with counterfeiters knows what real money looks like so well that they can identify the counterfeit money. The reason why one thinks Rob Bell is right is they do not know the word of God and or they do not have the Holy Spirit who will lead them into all truth. All that I have said comes from the scriptures I did not use the references on purpose like I would normally. If you know the Word you will understand why the virgin birth is so critical.

Also, you are missing what Church history says or you do not even know much about church history. Pick up a copy of "Church History In Plain Language" by Bruce Shelley. You will see the early church from the beginning having these same problems. The lessen is move away from the core and the person of Christ and you run a muck into all sorts of error. If your premise is off so will you conclusions.

Brian is right about the satire, but I had respond to this idea of faith is what is important and it is not critical about the virgin birth, that is not true. For some they will defend a Rob Bell to the death instead of letting the Holy Spirit be the commentary. I was just reading these posts and saying oh how we have left Christ and who He is for an empty faith that changes like an Cameleon. Jesus said it this way, who do you say that I am? This includes the virgin birth.

Rob Bell has a valid and theologically sound point. Thinking that Christ's divinity is causally tied to the account of the Virgin Birth drastically misrepresents the Chalcedonic formulation of the hypostatic union, which is THE orthodox christological statement for the Church! Christ is True God and True Man because his human nature and divine nature are united in the personhood of the Logos. The Virgin Birth has nothing to do with mechanistically with the mystery of the Incarnation. True, the Virgin Birth speaks of and to the Incarnation because in it God gives us a wonderful physical symbol of Christ's identity, but the Virgin Birth does NOT cause the hypostatic union. If the Virgin Birth were the cause of the hypostatic union, we would be saying that Jesus is a mixing of human DNA and some type of "divine" DNA. (which is itself a nonsensical concept which fails on both a biological and spiritual level) Moreover, we would be saying that Christ's humanity was substantially different from our humanity, and thus his significance for us and our salvation would be erased. For this reason, we must understand that the Virgin Birth as a witness to the Incarnation, but not the mechanism of Incarnation. Even if the Church were somehow forced to give up the Virgin Birth, we would not be forced to give up ancient kerygma of the Church.

A second reason for the virgin birth was to ensure that Jesus was both the legal and royal heir to the throne. The problem had to do with the curse on Jehoiakim. I am quoting the following from one of the many sources that explain how the curse works with a divine solution.

Joseph, the father of Jesus, was one of Jehoiakim's descendants (through Jeconiah). Joseph's offspring could not claim David's throne because of the curse. Jesus laid claim to the throne of David (Luke 1:32, Acts 2:30, Hebrews 12:2). If Jesus had been born of Joseph, the curse would have been contradicted.

Also, God had promised David that one of his physical descendants would reign on the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:12-13). As explained above, Joseph was excluded from being the genetic father of the future king of Israel.

It was impossible to fulfill the requirements of both curse and promise by natural means. One man had to be both heir to and offspring of David, without being the genetic descendant of Jehoiakim. This problem required a divine solution.

God created a solution through the miracle of the virgin birth. Although Joseph was one of Jehoiakim's offspring (through Solomon), Mary was not. She was a descendant of Nathan, one of David's other sons (Luke 3:31). God's promise to David was fulfilled because Mary was the biological parent of Jesus.

The virgin birth also addressed the curse God had pronounced upon Jehoiakim. Kingship was an inherited right. By Joseph, Jesus inherited a legal claim to the throne of David. However, he was exempt from the curse of Jehoiakim because Joseph was not his genetic father.

So the miracle of the virgin birth accomplished God's will in two ways. First, it granted Jesus a legal claim to the throne of David. And second, it maintained the integrity of the curse God had pronounced upon Jehoiakim. Indeed, Jesus was not one of Jehoiakim's offspring.

Yes, the Virgin Birth is important, and it fits in all the ways you mentioned. That was never the question.

The question is, did it *have* to be that way? Could God have done it some other way? If we discovered that he did, in fact, do it some other way, would our faith fall apart? Both theoretically (what if he had arranged the world differently, and declared that YOU would be the parent of the Christ?) and actually (what if, somehow, we misunderstood for the past 2,000 years?), it could have been different.

If our faith is in the Virgin Birth, a human historical event, then our faith falls apart if you can somehow mis-prove it. Fortunately for me, my faith is in the Christ Child, instead.

To suggest that our faith is misplaced if it rests in the accounts of inerrant Scripture is the leaven that grows into heresy. First, theoretically, a pastor suggests that our faith needs to be stronger than any one account in the Bible, if one happens to be proved false. Subconsciously, that suggests that areas of the Bible may, in fact, be false. Ultimately, it undermines the authority of scripture, leaving the spiritual leader room to enter and take authority for him/herself.

This is so emergent church preaching, which is a euphemism for the new age apostate church. Full of gobbldygook. Can't get a straight answer cuz you just don't have one. Many will call me Lord, Lord...

I think, that if you read carefully the historic confessions and creeds of Christendom, you will find that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and partook of her substance and that the Holy Spirit so worked upon this sinful human nature and overpowered it so that which was impure became holy. I have understood that the fact of the virgin birth is integral to the doctrines of Christ being truly human as well as divine. This forms the foundation for my understanding of Christ being the second Adam and being the only One who was able to pay the price for my sin. A mere man was unable too but a man was also necessary.
I believe that it is imperative that we always proclaim the Virgin Birth as without it all the work of Christ falls for it is truly the means and mechanism of His humanity

What of Original Sin? The Bible makes it very clear that any-one born of a man will inherit the Adamic curse and will have a sinful nature. Jesus would have been cursed with a depraved nature and wouldn't have been able to stand in any-ones place if he was not born of a virgin. Substitutionary, Penal Atonement wouldn't work. The virgin birth is essential to the idea that Jesus was without sin. The reason Rob Bell doesn't believe it's essential is because he is a Palegian: a heretic who denies the doctrine of Original Sin and grace based substitution.

But if you get rid of the virgin birth, you have false prohecy Isaiah 7:14). If you have false prophecy, you have a god who is weak and can not keep his word or a liar who chooses not to keep his word. Faith is not blind.

I don't know what about others but I think Mark is right in some points. The pastor should be an example for people which they would like to follow. The pastor should be almost an ideal man. I like Mark's speeches. They are always interesting. I liked his speech about religion and redemption a lot

The problem with a virgin birth is that from a scientific point of view, Human Parthenogenesis would result in a clone of the mother. Since Jesus was not a woman and Mary did not have a Y chromosome, it is definitely a leap of faith to imagine how she conceived a child without a father. breville tea maker
Sorry to rain on anyone's parade but genetics is a fairly solid science.

but.besides various other reasons, Jesus being born of a virgin was prophecied in Isaiah.(Isaiah 7:14). If Jesus had not fulfilled that prophecy, either the Bible is not inerrant (it is)or Jesus is not the Messiah (He is). If Jesus was not born of a virgin, we would need to question his deity. We do not have to, because he fulfilled prophecy.

If you had bothered to read [and understand] Velvet Elvis, this would have been clear.

The point is that No, we do not believe in Christ because he was born of a virgin (a human reason for belief). We believe in Christ because he is GOD (a divine reason for belief).

Yes, we believe he was born of a virgin. Yes, this was prophesied. But no, it was not the only way that God could have done things.

If we really believe that he is God, he could have done things differently. He could have had his Son born of a prostitute, or a man, or float down from the sky in a gelatinous bubble. He's God, he gets to do what He wants and we get to watch and learn. He could have made the prophesies occur differently. He could have given you pink bubble gum instead of brains...

I echo the point made by a previous commenter. If your faith is in the Virgin Birth instead of in the Christ Child, you have a very weak faith indeed.

Rob Bell doesn't like giving people easy answers. The firmest faith is one that a person comes to by their own steps and he lets people walk that road. What is better - "I know homosexuality is a sin because my pastor said so on Sunday and he will kick me out if I disagree" or "I know homosexuality is a sin because through my own questioning and study and prayer it was revealed to me to be true."

And then our God is a liar and EVERYTHING in His Word becomes questionable if not false. It's not about having faith in a virgin birth or how much faith you have if it wasnt true. Its about what God says is full truth and if one thing is wrong then the whole thing is faulty.

If we get rid of the virgin birth we still have faith? In WHAT exactly? Without the virgin birth, there is no Saviour, no salvation, no eternal life, no CHRISTianity- because Jesus would have been just another sinner, like you and me.
It is BECAUSE he was God in the flesh that he was born of a virgin- do you BELIEVE that? Do you have faith in Jesus as your Saviour and LORD?
Jesus said IF you continue in MY word THEN are ye my disciples indeed and ye shall know the truth and the TRUTH shall make you free. This man is casting aspersions on both scripture and the Lord- and in such a subtle way that many who are either scripturally illiterate or lazy will not see it.
This is a black and white issue. Either the Bible IS true and every single word of God in scripture can be trusted, or God is a liar. You cannot have it both ways, you cannot build a string house on a foundation of soft sand, and it seems that this man is digging away at the foundations and that people who call themselves Christians either cannot see it, or do not care.
It's not putting your faith in the virgin birth, it is putting your faith in he who was born of the virgin birth- as the scriptures foretold.
Either we can trust God to be true to ALL His word, or we can't. Oprah often uses that catch phrase, "Ya gotta have faith..". Yes, but in WHAT, or whom. Faith is not some nebulous airy-fairy thing that drops down from heaven, it is belief IN something or someone, and it is only as valuable and as real as the OBJECT of that faith.
You can have faith in Santa or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy until the cows come home, but it won't cause an imaginary fat man to climb down your chimney and bestow gifts upon you.

It DOES matter that Jesus was born of a virgin, it matters a lot- an ETERNAL lot. we can't just put aside the foundations of the faith and pretend that it is of no consequence. What is next? The divinity of Jesus, maybe he wasn't REALLY God, maybe Hell is not real, maybe you don't REALLY have to believe in the Jesus of the Bible to be saved.....?

JESUS said MY sheep hear MY voice, and the voice of a stranger they will not follow. People these days are following many strange voices. Are you following JESUS, who said that Heaven and earth will pass away abut my word will NEVER pass away, or following a stranger who says that what is essential and foundational doesn't matter...DOES it matter? When the storms of life come, will your spiritual walk be founded on the Rock, or on something that will be washed away....

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I like what you've said here. There are many heresies taught all over America. Doesn't that statement sound much nicer that "there are heretics everywhere." It's like calling someone a liar. If I say something that isn't true, even if it's not intentional, even if I'm merely mistaken... it's a lie by definition. The misinformed orator is by definition a liar.

Of course, there are so many loaded ideas about what a liar in our country is... A liar is typically believed to be malevolent, deceptive, and downright mean. In reality, they may be a nice guy. I wouldn't call Rob Bell a heretic, or a liar even if he is one. I would say that I've heard him say heretical things, and untrue things. That he's mistaken in some of his theology. Why not season our words at times when they're going to be very difficult to swallow?

Soooo, what's wrong with guys wearing cardigans? I think Driscoll needs to focus more on understanding that God is more concerned with a man's heart than what he wears or drives. A Christian wearing skinny jeans, a cardigan, drinking a latte and driving a Mini Cooper is no less a Christian than Driscoll. It's a heart issue, not how many reps you can do on a weight bench. I think I understand his point, but it seems like it was delivered in the worst possible way. Being strong in your faith does not have anything to do with watching UFC!!! This mentality reminds me of the Acquire the Fire "build God's army!!!" stuff. God doesn't need an army, he needs passionate, compassionate people who love Him and love others. Period. This other stuff just turns people off from wanting to learn the truth because it makes us all look like whackos. Bad form, Mr. Driscoll, bad form. Sounds to me like someone needs to go back to the sunday school classroom.
Carly S.

If you listen to Driscoll in context you will know what he means. Those little rants about skinny jeans, lates, and cardigans are only for the humor. His point is that modern American culture has bread a generation of little boys in men's bodies. There are few real men these days and it takes a real man (not necessarily the macho man who smells like a gym and wears a "wife-beater-shirt") to lead/plant a church. Men with the guts to get back up and keep going, to take the hits (physical or emotional) and not give-up. All his other stuff is just his sense of humor. If you listen to the full context of the sermons you will get that he IS talking about the heart. Some people just focus on his "Shock" humor more then the rest of what he is saying.

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Bell preaches heresy. Driscoll is Biblical with a touch of being very OUT THERE. Driscoll broke from the Emerging Church and the heresy taught and now teaches at seminars with the likes of John Piper, C.J.Mahaney and Al Mohler.

Whoever suggests that DRISCOLL left the emergent church because of heresy, really should get the facts straight. First, He still calls himself "EMERGING" different than emergent,and second he is a strict calvinistic biblicist, both of which are derived form the 16th century PRO REF... NOt Words from JESUS' mouth... so be careful PAUL. Second, I think people should have punched him I would and then called him an idiot. Sure why aren't men more manly... that's the problem with the world!! Gimme a break. As if manly was described by the amount of football you play, or how much weight you lift... Strange I don't remember hearing anything on the cross about JESUS being like OH YEAH GIMME MORE I CAN TAKE IT!
What a bunch of gunk and propaganda.

But he also talked about the beauty of flowers (lilies of the field) and sparrows and, oh yeah, don't forget; he even cried and had perfume poured on him. Don't cheapen Christ by turning him into a today's version of William Wallace or The Punisher.

he also went into the temples and whipped the people in them turned over 5 thousand pund marble tables! you ever think jesus is a bad ass and a kind man im pretty sure you can be both! i know a lot of fighters that are strong christians!

With William Wallaca aka Mel Gibson directing a film on Jesus Christ, this exactly has happened. As someone else said, the film was filled with scenes of "Is that all you have got?" "Give me some more pain". The movie showed christ the exact way Mark Driscoll wants the pastors to be in his church!!

John...Driscoll isn't a calvanist, to paraphrase/ half-quote him, "I'm not a Calvanist anymore than Calvin was, I like Calvin, but [don't believe in Calvanism]. He states his position on Calvanism clearly in one of his many books. (I own them all). Furthermore, most recently, he rebukes Calvanism in his sermon on religious legalism.

While I think having the pastors who wouldn't hit him escourted from the conference was a little drastic, THE REST OF HIS THEOLOGY IS SOUND, and if you listen to him enough, you'll find he's humble about occasionally being a little out there. Even the majority of his dissenters will agree with the fact that it's his personality they have a hard time with, never his theology. At least he's not preaching health and wealth, fundamentalism, or legalism - he's preaching JESUS, contrary to what most high-profile pastors are doing nowadays, which is preaching a gospel different from the one found within the bible, and most of them have MUCH more followers and WAY less dissenters than Driscoll does, which is scary. It's really scary that we have a modern-day pastor that can reach people like the 20-something's in our nation and preach the real gospel, and we're all nit-picking about how he's going about doing it, meanwhile people like Joel Osteen and Binny Hinn, and John Macarthur are taking over our bookstores and airwaves.

I do strongly believe there is a drought of true male leadership that today's men can relate to and find within many of today's churches...Sorry, but testosterone and Mr. Rogers don't mix. Driscoll reaches the crowd that modern-day mega pastors can't reach. People aren't focusing on that, they're focusing on how UNLIKE the other pastors he is and how non-conforming he is to the self-righteous view of the masses who think a pastor should be the equivelent of a momma's boy, because somehow THAT's the only type of person God would chose to bring his message of grace and salvation, is though a guy that flosses and wears a cardigan sweater.